>>What I'm trying to get to here is that there will always be trade offs. Never a system IME that will do all types of music as well...<<
I don't agree. Any combination of hifi gear claiming fidelity can and should perform any kind of music "well." Perhaps not perfectly, but certainly well. If it cannot play a full orchestra, Andrew Bird, Jack White, James Blake, Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars, Gillian Welch, Led Zeppelin, Doc Watson, M.Ward, the full international catalog of MA Recordings, Sonny Rollins, Gram Parsons, Justin Earl, Tom Waits, Hound Dog Taylor, Alison Krause, Kate Bush and Maria Callas with equal credibility, then a system is too skewed to genre.
I didn't reference my own systems, but you looked them up. Unless you've put together strong, big-glass SET with a fast & clean full range driver based speaker option of over 100db/w/m efficiency, you won't have heard the sound implied by what you saw listed. As speakers, Audio Note, Tannoy, Quad all impose marked trade-offs denting the polar graph of "all types of music [played] well." Good as they are, this can be overcome via some other brands.
You can get to a higher state of musical realism via many lesser-known brands *not* named Audio Research and some of the other offenders I mentioned. And I didn't mention "bliss." This is important to the point. Realism and convincing musicality are the objectives. If that's present, then you get bliss if the music content takes you there. If it doesn't, no bliss. Not all music is blissful. Were it so, that would be a distortion too.
Cary, Kondo, Jadis, Audion -- each a very different sound. I couldn't lump them together as representing any one thing. I haven't claimed there is one path; I've said that THIS path, represented by the ARC REF series and for reasons I've already written, is a dead end for anyone expecting more fidelity, not less, over time. That ARC has done worse in recent years doesn't convince me to be enthusiastic about the current series. I agree the new amps are better, still continuing a flawed direction. If you believe criticism is intrinsically condescending, then so be it but that's neither the tone nor intent of what I've written. Regardless, I stand by my description and people who don't agree will buy the REF amps or something like them.
Phil
I don't agree. Any combination of hifi gear claiming fidelity can and should perform any kind of music "well." Perhaps not perfectly, but certainly well. If it cannot play a full orchestra, Andrew Bird, Jack White, James Blake, Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars, Gillian Welch, Led Zeppelin, Doc Watson, M.Ward, the full international catalog of MA Recordings, Sonny Rollins, Gram Parsons, Justin Earl, Tom Waits, Hound Dog Taylor, Alison Krause, Kate Bush and Maria Callas with equal credibility, then a system is too skewed to genre.
I didn't reference my own systems, but you looked them up. Unless you've put together strong, big-glass SET with a fast & clean full range driver based speaker option of over 100db/w/m efficiency, you won't have heard the sound implied by what you saw listed. As speakers, Audio Note, Tannoy, Quad all impose marked trade-offs denting the polar graph of "all types of music [played] well." Good as they are, this can be overcome via some other brands.
You can get to a higher state of musical realism via many lesser-known brands *not* named Audio Research and some of the other offenders I mentioned. And I didn't mention "bliss." This is important to the point. Realism and convincing musicality are the objectives. If that's present, then you get bliss if the music content takes you there. If it doesn't, no bliss. Not all music is blissful. Were it so, that would be a distortion too.
Cary, Kondo, Jadis, Audion -- each a very different sound. I couldn't lump them together as representing any one thing. I haven't claimed there is one path; I've said that THIS path, represented by the ARC REF series and for reasons I've already written, is a dead end for anyone expecting more fidelity, not less, over time. That ARC has done worse in recent years doesn't convince me to be enthusiastic about the current series. I agree the new amps are better, still continuing a flawed direction. If you believe criticism is intrinsically condescending, then so be it but that's neither the tone nor intent of what I've written. Regardless, I stand by my description and people who don't agree will buy the REF amps or something like them.
Phil